The best way to lose money with Crypto!
The Crypto phenomenon is amazing, to say the least!
Different surveys and research reveal that since the start of the Crypto craze in 2009,
- At least 20% of Americans have invested or traded in crypto
- 81, 408 people hold at least $1 million in Crypto Currency.
- Crypto is the primary investment for Millennials
- 84% of millennial millionaires made their money with crypto
- 50% of millennial wealth is in crypto
- 19 people have become Billionaires from crypto
- It’s not just individuals. Even Tesla holds over $2 Billion in Crypto Currency
You probably see these numbers or ones like them thrown around casually in the news or on investment programs, but there is a dark underbelly of crypto that most don’t talk about.
- When it crashes, it crashes fast! (FTX went from $30B to $0 in 14 days.)
- If you lose your keys, you lose your money.
- If someone else has your passwords, they have your money. No ID or checks and balances exist.
Crypto Currency’s Achilles Heel
Most people are familiar with the story of Achilles’ Heel. In Greek mythology, Achilles’ mother dipped the baby Achilles in the river Styx whose water protected him from harm, but she held him by his heel and since that heel was not coated by the water, it was the one weak place where he could be injured. Eventually, he was shot with a poisoned arrow in that heel and died.
Likewise, Crypto Currency is lauded as being ultimately secure, immutable, untraceable, and secure. In fact, one of the selling points of Crypto Currency is that it can’t be stolen. “Crypto Currency is immune to seizure: Nobody can confiscate your Crypto Currency since you own it; it’s not housed at any central bank or company,” Claims Crypto Currency.com How wonderful!
What happens if I lose the password and keys to my Crypto Currency wallet?
{crickets}
Hello? Is anyone there? What happens if I lose the keys to my Crypto Currency wallet?
And thus, Crypto Currency’s Achilles heel is revealed.
Since it is anonymous (for the most part), and fully encrypted, the ONLY way to access any cryptocurrency wallet is with the proper authentication keys and passphrases. If those are lost, then the contents of the wallet are just…well…gone. There is no recovery. You can’t go to a bank with paperwork and show that the wallet should belong to you. It’s gone. As easily as it was created, it disappears. Forever.
This was dramatically demonstrated when the CEO of the Crypto Currency investment firm QuadrigaCX passed away recently taking the only known passwords and keys to over $190 Million worth of client investments with him to his grave. That $190 Million is just gone. It’s not insured by the FDIC. It’s not insured by anything. It’s not recoverable. It’s just gone.
Likewise, a gentleman named Stephan Thomas has been locked out of $140 Million of currency he’ll never be able to recover, and a Welsh gentleman accidentally threw away a hard drive that contained the only keys available to access his 7,500 bitcoins (worth about $135 million). Poof! Gone!
This has been Crypto Currency’s Achilles heel since it was created. If you own Crypto Currency you need to take special precautions to ensure that if something happens to you your survivors can still access your wallet. This in itself presents a curious conundrum.
You want a select number of people to have access to your keys and passphrases in the future if and only if something happens to you, but you don’t want them or anyone else to have access to them now. You can’t just share the keys with someone else because that would give them access to the wallet today. You can’t write it down or store it somewhere because that could be discovered, and the contents of the wallet stolen. It is a conundrum.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Spoiler alert: If you keep reading from this point on, I’m going to tell you how this problem can be solved, but in full disclosure, the solution to the problem is a service of a company in which I am personally involved. In fact, the company was conceived, devised, and designed to solve this exact problem. What do you do with information you want others to have someday, but don’t want them to have today?
What if you could put information like your Crypto Currency passwords and keys into a very special vault that was fully encrypted, end-to-end, so that no one but you and a designated recipient could access, but the vault had a time lock on it so that the recipient couldn’t access the vault until after you had passed away? That would keep your keys safe today and while you are still alive, but allow others to access the information if something happened to you.
IronClad Family Vaults were designed exactly this way and are the only known company that provides this kind of service. It is the insurance that any Crypto Currency owner should have to ensure that the value of their wallet (and other personal information!) transcends their own demise. This article isn’t an advertisement, so I won’t go into any details. I’ll just suggest that you check them out at www.ironcladfamily.com.
Cryptocurrency is a brilliant fiduciary invention, but it is not without frailties. Like most other things, a few select tools operating in concert is the best way to receive the ultimate benefit from technology. You wouldn’t buy a new house or new car without putting locks on the doors.
Don’t open a Crypto Currency wallet without a way to ensure that your heirs can access it should something happen to you. Personally, I follow my own advice. I have a Crypto Currency wallet and I have my keys and passphrases stored safely in my IronClad Family vault. If only Achilles had something like this…
